Welcome to Show Us the Receipts, our recurring column on what fashion people really buy and spend.
Money remains taboo in almost every corner of life, but in fashion, dollars and cents can take on an especially complex dimension—from both inside and out. With a high buy-in to the luxury market and wages that don’t often allow professionals access to the goods offered by their own industry, we often find ourselves wondering how, exactly, our contemporaries afford their wardrobes. Do they come from generational wealth? Are they on every PR gifting list known to man? Are they savvy sale shoppers and bargain hunters? Or are they just really shrewd budgeters?
Here, we asked three stylish people in or adjacent to the fashion industry to chronicle one month of their fashion consumption—and to note what was purchased at full price, discounted, and gifted. This month, an editor, a publicist, and a Prada collector all offered Vogue a peek at their receipts.
It was an average shopping month for the editor, who—save for the jeans and dress she was gifted—only made purchases via secondhand sites like Poshmark and The RealReal. And while she is happy with all of her purchases (even if she jokes, “I love heels I can’t walk in”), she does want to reprioritize her spending. “I want to spend less money on clothing, more on travel,” she admits.
The publicist, meanwhile, counts this as a light month on the clothing front. “Fashion wasn’t really my focus this month as I was spending elsewhere,” she says. While she enjoyed a vintage Armani jacket haul from Poshmark, many of her pieces were new. Though some gifts and discounts came via work, she too couldn’t resist the siren song of the Dôen sample sale.
The publicist views new clothing—and, by extension her image—as integral to her work. “This is a way I pay myself through my business,” she says. “It’s important to try new brands and of course, represent your business to the highest standard.”
The collector, for her part, says this was a particularly fashion-focused month. “I had runway and custom pieces arrive, which thankfully does not happen most months,” she says. The majority of the pieces were ordered back in February after she attended the ready-to-wear show in Milan. “I tend to place more orders at shows I attend, especially if I like the show,” she says.
While the collector, who is retired, has some major qualms about her role in the fashion industry ecosystem–“I try to avoid brands whose ideologies do not comport with mine,” she says—she has no regrets participating in an art form that she has admired since childhood. “I know the people who have worked hard to make the garment, and the value of their craftsmanship and creativity,” she says. Though she caveats, “I try to make sure what I spend on clothes is not more than what I spend to help lift those less fortunate.”
Below, see what the editor, the publicist, and the collector spent on fashion in one month.
The Editor
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